In the latter part of the month a number of casualties are recorded from the 1st/6th Battalion - not really part of the story of the 1st Battalion. However they have been included to show the very young age of some of these soldiers who were in Stockport in August 1914, part of the Cheshire Brigade, Welsh Division.

On 10 November 1914 they left the Division and landed in France and on the 17 December 1914 were attached to 15th Brigade, 5th Division, alongside the 1st Battalion. On the 11th it commenced duty in the Wulverghem sector.

The following 4 N.C.O.s and men of the 1st Battalion were killed in action or died of their wounds during December 1914:

Men of the 1st/6th Battalion

Such was the intensity of the fighting around Ypres that most of the men killed in action during the First Battle were never given a formal burial and have, therefore, no known grave. Instead they are commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial. (right)

Every evening since 1928, at precisely eight o'clock, the Last Post - the traditional salute to the fallen soldier - has been played under the Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper, Belgium.

...... about the last post ceremony at the Menin Gate.

The First Phase of the War had come to an end around 22 November, so, not surprisingly the men of the 1st Battalion spent most of December in billets in and around Bailleul and Dranoutre. However, under pressure from the French, limitted attacks were renewed around Yser and Ypres.

Half of the Battalion at a time, by Company, were in and out of trenches at Wulvergham between the 18th and 28th December, but casualties were light. Generally, trench conditions were truly appalling; there were too few men and insufficient supplies of equipment and ammunition.

On the 24th December 5 new Officers and 444 NCOs and men joined the Battalion from England, so that now new additions numerically outnumbered the remnants of the original Battalion that had set out from Belfast in August.